Centuries

For centuries, historians, political theorists, anthropologists and the public have tended to think about the political process in seasonal, cyclical terms. From Polybius to Paul Kennedy, from ancient Rome to imperial Britain, we discern a rhythm to history. Great powers, like great men, are born, rise, reign and then gradually wane. No matter whether civilizations decline culturally, economically or ecologically, their downfalls are protracted. In the same way, the challenges that face the United States are often represented as slow-burning.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- President Obama proclaimed the U.S. “exceptional” in the world as he paid tribute Wednesday to what he called the “finest, most capable military the world has ever known.” Speaking to graduates at the U.S. Air Force Academy here, Obama heralded the dawn of “another great American century” that he predicted will see recovery from tough economic times, new nation-building at home and an important role in...

Buddhist monk Ando remembers the toil of all those years, trying to satisfy the training demands of an aging martial arts master who could never be pleased. Silent and impassive, monk Yang-ik perched in the lotus position on a platform above his young proteges, who leaped from mats, kicking two impossibly high bags one after the other, the best adding aerial somersaults before landing gracefully, like big cats. When they finished, panting and sweating, the master dismissed them.

Gilt A Novel Katherine Longshore Penguin: 416 pp., $17.99, ages 12 and up King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded. One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded. If there's anyone in history who personifies the treacheries of marriage, it's King Henry VIII of England, who is best known for the beheadings he inflicted during a reign of nearly 38 years. What led to such a barbaric punishment for the sexual indiscretions of his betrothed is the central theme of "Gilt," which tells the fictionalized history of wife No. 5: Catherine Howard, "the forgotten daughter of the forgotten third son of the man who had once been Duke of Norfolk," writes novelist Katherine Longshore.

A cracked concrete road spirals up to a lookout over Salemi in western Sicily, passing flimsy-looking apartment houses, weed-choked fields, rubble-strewn construction sites and a dilapidated villa with a sign that says it's an insane asylum. All along the way are views over the old hill town, with its echoing alleyways and stairs, ruined Baroque churches and roofless palazzos abandoned after the 1968 Belice Valley earthquake, a 6.0-magnitude shaker that killed 300 people and left 70,000 people homeless.

The U.S. Census Bureau launched a national road tour Monday to drum up participation in the decennial population count, bringing Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other 21st century technology to the centuries-old exercise. The road tour, billed as the largest civic outreach campaign in the bureau's history, features 13 vans that will bring census information and interactive displays across 150,000 miles for 1,547 days with 800 publicity stops at parades, festivals and major sporting events such as the Super Bowl and NCAA Final Four basketball tournament.

Steven Brock studied medicine in Nepal--but it was a branch of medicine more than 28 centuries old. Brock, 26, of Plainfield, Vt., went to Nepal to study the science of ayurveda, the world's first recorded life science. It was codified 28 centuries ago in Sanskrit by scholars who believed they were taught by God's physicians.

Coral reefs have been dying off at alarming rates because of modern human activity, and conservationists struggle to preserve them. Now scientists have found such efforts have a long history. By the beginning of the 15th century, native Hawaiian islanders were engaging in sustainable practices to preserve their reefs — ushering in 400 years of recovery. The research, published Monday in the journal PLoS One, shows that sustainable practices go back a long way and that coral reefs may be better able to regenerate than previously thought.

One of the most irritating cliches of journalism today is this: "What do X, Y and Z (three well-known people) have in common?" The answer is usually something like: "They all spread peanut butter on their watermelons," or "All three have their hair styled by Madame Snippette of Beverly Hills." The irreverent syllables "So what?" spring to mind. But I will ask: What do the three ceramic figures in the illustration have in common?

Los Angeles Master Chorale music director Grant Gershon seems to be what the late, 19th century-born Times music critic Albert Goldberg would have called "the New Man" -- someone at home with up-to-the-minute devices such as the iPod. One hint is that Gershon proudly lists the diverse contents of his own iPod under his bio in the chorale's printed program. And although he stopped short of saying so, Gershon led an iPod kind of Master Chorale program Sunday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall -- a grab bag of small- and medium-sized pieces from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries with a few stream-of-consciousness links.

Howard Terpning paints how the West was lived and lost more than 120 years ago. His subject is 19th century Native Americans, although he is not their descendant. Some of his canvases aim to capture the courage, dignity and desperation of the fight to keep their land. Many are carefully detailed depictions of the ways of life they fought to save. "Tribute to the Plains People," now at the Autry National Center of the American West in Griffith Park, is the biggest solo show of Terpning's career - a retrospective that covers 35 years and documents his standing as the acknowledged leader of a popular but not universally admired movement in which paintings become time machines into the Old West.

If Carlos Fuentes could have invented the perfect character to star in one of his novels, he might have come up with a protagonist named Carlos Fuentes. That character would be a glamorous global citizen who was born in Panama as a diplomat's son, then hopscotched to Washington, D.C., London, Paris and other glittering power centers. A dapper ladies' man who married an actress and claimed to have had affairs with screen sirens Jeanne Moreau and Jean Seberg. A lifelong adventurer, like the tragedy-haunted journalist hero of Fuentes' novel "The Old Gringo," played by Gregory Peck in the 1989 film version . A man who, like many of Fuentes' characters, overcomes personal tragedy of near-mythic proportions partly through the sheer power of his own relentless drive and productivity.

NEW YORK - "A snake swallowing an elephant" is how the Chinese artist Wu Guanzhong described himself. The snake was the Chinese artist in him, and the elephant was Western art. The stylistic fusion that made him one of China'sleading modern artists is on view at the Asia Society Museum here in "Revolutionary Ink: The Paintings of Wu Guanzhong," which also reflects the artist's long life amid the turmoil of China's 20th century. Wu died in 2010 at 90, and these works from his last decades - depicting nature and architecture, some more naturalistic, others mostly abstract - show his easy cohabitation of two cultural hemispheres.

"Sweet Joe" Russell, who spent half a century harmonizing with the Persuasions, an influential vocal group widely regarded as the "kings of a cappella," has died. He was 72. Russell died May 5 in a Brooklyn hospice after a long struggle with diabetes, said his wife, Arlena. "If the Persuasions were a single body, Joe was the heart and soul," said David Dashev, who was their manager and producer in the 1970s at the height of their fame. "He had a larger-than-life personality combined with a genius voice.

"Here we are - no, I mean there we were… Flash! The distant shipping in the Thames is gone. Whirr!… Dustheaps, market gardens, and waste grounds. Rattle!...Shock!...Bur-r-r-r! The tunnel…I am… flying for Folkestone…Bang!… Everything is flying. " -- "A Flight," by Charles Dickens, describing a rail trip from London in the journal "Household Words," 1851 :: Who knew that Charles Dickens, master scribe who brought us Scrooge, Copperfield and tale upon cautionary tale of hard 19th century life, was a transit aficionado with a story to tell traffic-snarled Angelenos about their plight?

Designed to evoke 19th century California ranchos, this equestrian estate sits behind the gates of Rolling Hills on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Clad in board-and-batten siding, the ocean-view house is reached by a flagstone path flanked by lawn and landscaping that includes hydrangeas, roses and bluebells. Location: 1 Packsaddle Road East, Rolling Hills 90274 Asking price: $6.495 million Year built: 2000 House size: Five bedrooms, 61/2 bathrooms, 8,610 square feet Lot size: Nearly 2 acres Features: Slate roof, open-beam ceilings, wide plank floors, basement exercise room, maid's quarters, three-car garage with workshop, swimming pool, spa, outdoor kitchen, outdoor fireplace, paddock, stables.

SECRET SPOTS OF THE WEST We asked you to nominate your favorite vacation places in the West -- your travel touchstones, so to speak -- and you came back with a satchel full of suggestions. We sifted and sorted and chose six to explore for ourselves. Marvelous or mundane? You be the judge. -- "The most interesting part about [El Morro] is the signatures of all the people going through there," says reader Laura LaCour-Johnson, a native of Albuquerque. "The best time to go is just before winter, when it's chilly but you can still go up. If it has just snowed, it's really, really nice."

If your destination is Bratislava, be prepared for a few questions: Is that in Eastern Europe? (No, it's in Central Europe.) Capital of Slovenia, right? (Uh, no.) Where is that? (The last question courtesy of a Customs employee at LAX.) Until recently, my schooling on all things Bratislavan occurred during a 20-minute stop on a train traveling from Prague, Czech Republic, to Budapest, Hungary, almost a decade ago. Several travelers boarded; a few disembarked. Some of them flashed passports, suggesting that we had stopped in a different country, in a major European city about which I knew … nothing.

The Century, a luxury condominium tower in Century City, will soon house a restaurant operated by high-profile Los Angeles chef David Myers. His yet-to-be-named restaurant will be open to the public and also cater private meals and events for residents of the 41-story tower such as Candy Spelling, who owns the top two floors. The ground-floor restaurant will have a separate driveway and entrance from the residences, said Jeff Blau, president of the Related Cos., the developer of the tower on Avenue of the Stars.